"Negative history of fathers of women's players being psychopaths": Andy Roddick shares admiration of 'rare' father of Coco Gauff

Former world number one Andy Roddick has praised the father of young sensation Coco Gauff for her role in her recent success.

The 19-year-old is often regarded as one of the most highly-rated young players currently playing in the circuit in the women’s singles category. She recently lived up to the hype after winning the US Open in 2023 after beating the current world number two Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka with a score of 2-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Gauff, in her interviews and interactions with the media, has talked highly about her father who according to her is one of the biggest reasons of her success on the court. Roddick was recently quoted in an interview where he also praised the role of Gauff’s father.

"Also, it’s been spoken about a little bit but it needs to be spoken about more,” he said. “Especially in our sport where there has been a negative history of fathers of women tennis players being psychopaths and being irresponsible to the total human. Not the tennis but the total human.

"Corey Gauff was here also and his ability to not be the center of attention, doesn’t need the information to come from him, that is rare and it sounds like something that should be very obvious and it’s not. In the history of our sport it is not.

"There are a lot of cautionary tales and I won’t name them out of respect for the people who are on the bad side of those cautionary tales but it has been rampant in our sport.”